WHAT IS THE SPORT BUSINESS NETWORK?
The SBN is a business networking group for successful organisations. It places support for community sport at its core and employs “managed networking” strategies to ensure its members make highly effective contacts. HOW DO I KNOW IT IS FOR ME?
First ask yourself these questions:
Do you enjoy sport?
Do you appreciate that sport and its environment is one of the most powerful enablers of business relationships?
Do you believe that the business community should play a direct role in making our society a better and safer place?
Do you appreciate that networking is an effective business development discipline?
Do you find too many networking events deliver random and irrelevant contacts?
If the answer is yes to these questions you need to consider joining the SBN.
WHY SPORT?
Networking groups are more effective if they have, at their core, a common bond, cause or objective that has relevance and impact beyond the desire to do business together. Our common bond is sport and our supreme goal is to support community sport in particular. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY COMMUNITY SPORT?
Community Sport is all about taking sport and leisure activities directly into different communities, giving the people who live there opportunities to benefit from the power of sport. WHO DELIVERS COMMUNITY SPORT?
Our primary partners are the community schemes of professional sports clubs in the areas that the SBN operates. In most cases these schemes are registered charities which are part of the brand of the professional club but they are technically and legally separate entities. Other community sport delivery partners include amateur and semi professional clubs (there are 150,000 of these in the UK), schools, colleges, universities, sports charities and foundations, local authorities, housing associations and even organisations like the probation services. IS THE SBN FOCUSED ON PARTICULAR COMMUNITIES?
It is true that many of our partners spend a lot of time and effort working with disadvantaged communities but we aren’t prescriptive about this. Our brand core is that we believe society will be safer and more prosperous by getting young people off sofas and street corners and onto a sport court of some description. No matter where they come from. IS THERE A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY IN COMMUNITY SPORT?
Yes and it is massive. Not least because all of the organisations who deliver community sport buy goods and services, but the power of sport to open doors for those who are in it is unbelievable.
CAN COMMUNITY SPORT BENEFIT YOUR BRAND?
Undeniably yes. The SBN shows its members how to develop a corporate responsibility strategy through community sport which will significantly strengthen your brand image. DOES THIS COST MORE MONEY?
No. The SBN chooses a selection of community sport initiatives for sponsorship and our members then have the rights to use and a story to tell to their stakeholders. Simply by paying to be a member of the SBN you are contributing to the cause and therefore have a new PR platform.
WHAT IF I WANT TO SPONSOR MY OWN PROJECTS?
The SBN has a sister company called RTM Sports Marketing which specialises in developing and brokering sponsorship opportunities for clients in community sport and it will guide you through this process. ASIDE FROM SPORT, HOW DO I MEET OTHER MEMBERS?
On joining the SBN we spend time with you getting to know your business. This business evaluation is carried out by an account manager and it is this person’s job to make really effective contacts for you. WHY DO I NEED AN ACCOUNT MANAGER?
This is the process of “managed networking” that is the engine of the SBN. Our members are busy and successful people who don’t have the time or the inclination to attend the many weekly networking events that seem to dominate the market. These events can be very effective but too often the chances of meeting the right people are random at best. The Account Manager is armed with detailed information about your business and of the other members and is therefore ideally placed to make intelligent, strategic and effective connections on your behalf. This also saves you a huge amount of effort.
SO HOW DOES THE ACCOUNT MANAGER MAKE THESE CONNECTIONS?
The SBN has a series of tried and tested processes which work well. The Account Manager will make regular email connections for members suggesting why we think they should get together. He or she will also help to arrange these meetings in addition to a series of “round table” discussion groups where members meet and debate business critical issues. The SBN also holds free master classes on Effective Networking and CSR and Community Sport. These classes will add value to your business and create a platform to meet other members. Where possible we take selected groups out to physically see the work of our sports partners under the SiFi (see it – fix it) banner. SO DOES THE SBN HOLD ITS OWN EVENTS?
Absolutely yes! We remove the random from networking but there is nothing so powerful as getting like-minded successful people in the same room as each other. The SBN offers each member the opportunity to attend evening gala events and also informal breakfast meetings where introductions are made by our team but members are also encouraged to network on their own without a “chaperone”. DO THE EVENTS LINK TO SPORT?
They do indeed. We try to get a speaker from the world of sport to join our breakfast events and all of the evening gatherings are at a sporting venue or have a sporting theme.
ARE THESE INCLUDED IN THE MEMBERSHIP FEE?
There are no hidden costs so the events and the work of the Account Manager are included in the fee. WHAT IF I WANT TO ATTEND MORE SPORTING OCCASIONS?
The SBN has an arrangement with a ticketing and corporate hospitality business so often (but not always) we can get access to tickets and hospitality for sports events at a rate slightly below that of the market. If a group of our members wanted to attend a major sport event in order to network we would try to arrange that for them for a small administration fee on top of the ticket prices. DOES THE ACCOUNT MANAGER HELP TO SELL MY BUSINESS?
Absolutely not! The SBN is neither qualified nor empowered to make sales recommendations. If a member asks if we have other members with specific skills and experience we will point them in the right direction but we cannot and will not recommend one member over another. The SBN is a highly effective platform for growing your business contacts but it is not a sales agency.
SO IS THE SBN WORKING?
The SBN is fairly close to being unique and it has really grabbed the attention and interest of many successful business people and it is growing by the day.
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